


Is My Shepherd

by Alixtii



Series: Psalm 23 [6]
Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Bechdel Fix, Being Chased, Bisexual Characters, Bisexual Female Characters, Canon Scottish Character, Catholic School, Catholic School Uniforms, Character of Color, Concealed Handguns, Disability, F/F, F/M, Female Characters, Femslash, First Kiss, Girls in Their Summer Clothes, Handguns, Hero Worship, Het, Highway Battle, Hospital, Kneesocks, Knife Throwing, Longing, Multi, Original Bisexual Character, Original Character of Color, Original Disabled Character, POV Bisexual Character, POV Female Character, POV First Person, POV Original Character, POV Outsider, POV Teenaged Character, Pacific Islander Character, Paramilitary, Past Tense, Polyamory, Pseudostepcest, Redheaded Character, Scottish Character, Skirts, T-1001, Teenagers, Terminator vs. Terminator, Time Travel, Unresolved Sexual Tension, knife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-09
Updated: 2010-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-10 11:35:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alixtii/pseuds/Alixtii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2017, one of Savannah's classmates finds out that her friend is more than she ever could have imagined when she is targeted to be terminated. Original character POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is My Shepherd

**   
_A.D. 2017  
Eight Years after "Born to Run"  
Timeline Delta Bravo Three, Code "Girls in Their Summer Clothes"_   
**

Savannah Quinn--that was the nom de guerre that she was using when I first met her--transferred into Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy Preparatory School about one-third of the way through my junior year; she was in my homeroom and my theology class.

My first thought on seeing her was that she was the most beautiful person in the world. She did her best to hide it: she wore no makeup, a loose blouse over a bra deliberately picked out to make her look flat-chested, her skirt down to her knees. But one could tell by the way the boys acted around her that they weren't fooled, and neither was I. Her bright red hair, always pulled back in a ponytail, caused her to stand out, and she had the toned limber body of an athlete.

She refused most of the boys' requests for dates, although she did go out with a couple for several weeks each. There's a couple times I considered asking her out myself, but I was never sure I was ready to come out, even to just one person, even to someone like Savannah. Being turned down would be just as much worse. And it's not like there wouldn't be any consequences if the news got out; we went to a Catholic school, after all.

So instead we were just friends. Best friends after a week.

Savannah was _clearly_ in love with her stepbrother, John, anyway. The two of them were orphans, so John was her guardian, although they lived off some sort of trust fund--apparently either his or her parents had been loaded with money, computer software gurus or something. There were always computer programming books scattered around the houses, and both Quinn stepsiblings took advanced computer science classes at the local community college several times a week.

For Savannah, this was in addition to karate and gymnastics classes. Apparently, she was quite good in both, but never competed--and was involved in _no_ afterschool activities.

John was twenty-six, nine years older than Savannah, and for the most part he parented with a relatively light rein.

"Your brother is majorly hot," I pointed out to her one time.

"Ew," she said, but her eyes said, "Tell me something I don't know."

Anyway, they were just this majorly hot girl I just happened to be best friends with and her majorly hot brother until one day when she and I were walking home from school.

I didn't even see the attack, which goes to show that if I had been alone I'd have been dead without knowing it. One minute we're just walking, the next Savannah is pressing a man twice her size against the wall, his arm twisted behind his back.

"Drop it," she commanded, and I watched in shock as a knife clattered to the ground. "So what, you get your your kinks up by accosting defenseless schoolgirls?"

"As if," the man snorted. "Just trying to stay alive. They said if I took out the girl I was free. They didn't tell me Connor's bitch was going to be here, too."

Savannah's smile at this comment was both unexpected and scary in its sudden glee. "Well, that's what you get for listening to metal," she said, not lessening the pressure on his arm in the least. "You should have cut and run soon as you got back."

"Couldn't," he answered. "They sent a machine back with me to watch over me. Have to be sorry I won't get to see it terminate your ass."

"Trip-eight?" Savannah asked, sounding unimpressed.

The man laughed. "Nine twenty-five," he said, as if he expected this to gather a reaction.

He was right; I saw both of Savannah's eyebrows raise. "Model?" she asked.

"Little girl, blonde, maybe about 12 years old, four feet tall," he answered.

Savannah sighed. "Of course. It had to be _her_." She let go of the man, as if he posed no further threat to us, and pulled out her cell phone. "John? I'm going to have to borrow Cameron for a while. Apparently we have a Little Veronica on our tail." There was a pause as John said something, then she added, "Well, tell her to hurry up. Love you," and hung up. The "love you" had the definite subtext of "fuck me."

Savannah turned her attention back to the man. "So what am I supposed to do with you?"

The man held his hands up, palms open. "Look, I've been real cooperative here," he said. "So if you could do it quick before _it_ shows up and takes its time, I'd be grateful."

Savannah nodded. "Melanie, close your eyes," she commanded me.

I did. There was a loud bang shortly after, but I kept them closed.

"You can open them now," Savannah said. When I did, the man had a gunshot wound in the center of his forehead. There was no gun in sight.

I blinked, trying to get the facts to line up. Had Savannah really just killed somebody? Had somebody really just tried to kill me? No matter how I tried to think it through, I could make anything which had just happened make sense.

"Connor's bitch," Savannah repeated as she stared down at the murdered assailant, sounding quite satisfied by the epithet. "Hell's yeah."

As I was thinking, there was a--well, a cackle, maybe. Best I can explain it is that there was this sphere of, well, lightning almost, which just sort of appeared in front of us. I instinctively took a step back away from it.

A moment later it was gone and a naked man was there instead. Hot, well-muscled--and, ahem, well-endowed--probably of Pacific Islander descent.

I glanced over to Savannah who to my surprise held a handgun trained on the naked man. (Where had she been hiding it? And, more to the point, why?)

"Easy, ma'am," he said, raising his hands above his head. "I'm on your side."

Savannah didn't move. "Identify yourself, soldier."

"I'm Patu," he answered. "Corporal Tech-Com DN38572. You sent me back to protect Miss Friedman."

"You're late," Savannah answered curtly, gesturing at the dead man at out feet, but she lowered the gun and tucked it in the waistband of her skirt. "You think you can fit into his clothes?"

Patu nodded and began stripping the other man of his clothes. "I didn't know you went to Catholic school, ma'am."

"Probably a lot of things you don't know about me, Corporal," Savannah noted coldly.

"Yes, ma'am," he agreed, chagrined, as he pulled on a pair of pants.

I watched this exchange, still trying to make sense of the sequence of events. Apparently Savannah held some type of command rank in some paramilitary organization which had the ability to transport people like on _Star Trek_? It didn't make any sense.

Yet there we were.

"The corpse over there claimed he was working with a T-925," Savannah briefed Patu. "Don't know how long it'll be before it misses his check-in. I think we can assume that it doesn't know I'm here."

"No?" asked Patu as he pulled on the shirt. "How's that?"

She showed him the knife. "Because no metal is stupid enough to think a human being is going to be able to take me out armed with just this. Either it deliberately sent him on a suicide mission--in which case we have to ask why--or else it didn't count on him facing any resistance. No offense, Mel."

"None taken," I answered. They were the first words I had spoken since the knife had been drawn.

Patu stepped forward. "In that case, ma'am, I'm going to insist we split up. You're too important an asset to risk. I'll see to protecting Miss Friedman."

"Like hell you will." The gaze she levelled at Patu was pure ice. "I may be sixteen in this year, Corporal, but I _am_ in command. Always."

He gulped. Literally gulped. "Of course," he answered immediately. "I meant no disrespect, ma'am."

"Good," she said as she unzipped her backpack. "You know how to shoot a gun?" she asked, looking at me.

I shrugged. "You pull the trigger?"

She handed me the knife.

From behind a flap in her bag I hadn't known was there, she produced a handgun, which she handed to Patu. (Which still left open the question of where the first gun came from. She hadn't had time to get to her backpack, so--inside her blouse? Under her skirt? Kinky.) "We better get moving. We don't know when the Little Veronica will start looking, and we have a half-hour before Cameron gets here." She paused. "You know who Cameron is?"

Patu nodded. _I_ didn't know who Cameron was, and said so.

"Connor's _other_ bitch," Savannah answered, a look of whimsy passing across her features.

Patu laughed. "You got that right," he said.

Savannah nodded. "Let's go," she said.

* * *

Apparently, Savannah knew how to hotwire a truck. I was quickly realizing--having my face pushed in the fact, really--that there was a whole side to my best friend (and crush object) that I hadn't even suspected existed. Couldn't even have imagined, really--I was still trying to convince myself that I had or hadn't imagined that ball-of-lightning space warp. We had driven two blocks before we passed a little blonde girl, four feet tall, about twelve years old, holding a balloon.

"Shit," expleted Patu. "We've been spotted."

"Did she see you?" Savannah asked me, her eyes on the road.

"I think so," I said. I saw the little girl let go of her ballon and begin to run, chasing after us. "Make that definitely."

Savannah's foot hit the gas pedal as if it were made of lead, even as Patu fired a shot right through the heart of the little girl.

Or at least, right through where the heart should have been. A hole opened in her chest, made of--well, it looked like nothing so much as a sort of liquid chrome--then just as quickly seemed to heal itself, so that not even her clothing showed so much as a tear.

"How?" I questioned.

"Mimetic polyalloy outer sheath," Patu answered, as he fired off another shot. They didn't seem to be having much appreciable effect.

"Melanie, hand me that knife," Savannah instructed. I did so, not sure what she was going to do with it against a creature which could heal itself from gunshot wounds.

Patu seemed to have the same doubts. "You have to be kidding."

"I don't have to be doing anything, soldier," she reminded him. She looked at me. "The polyalloy membrane is thinnest just above the visual sensor. A gunshot wouldn't do much damage, but a knife--here, take the wheel." I took the wheel--this at about 90 miles per hour on a 35-mph road--while she turned in her seat to get a good look at the Little Veronica.

"Not even you could make that shot," Patu was insisting. "It's not even balanced for--"

Savannah threw the knife.

It landed squarely in the Little Veronica's left eye. It stumbled, then came to a stop. It reached up, pulled out the knife--and I could see the flare of damaged electronics before the polyalloy flowed back over it, sealing it.

"Now we've got a one-eyed Terminator," Patu admitted appreciatively.

"Which means a Terminator without depth-perception," Savannah noted as she turned the car around--tires screeching, rubber burning, just like in the movies--and drove right into the Little Veronica, then sped right pass her and onto the exit onto the highway.

"Watch her navigate this with one eye," Savannah said as she changed lanes with no warning.

It was at this point that I covered my eyes, not wanting to watch.

* * *

What seemed like centuries passed, until I heard Savannah mutter, "Took her long enough."

I opened my eyes to see that a sporty red convertible sports coup, driven by a young brunette woman in a sundress and sunglasses, had pulled up alongside us--at 130 mph. I watched as the woman turned on her cruise control, then jumped from one vehicle to the other, landing on the back of the truck and leaving the coup to crash into the shoulder of the road.

"Nice of you to join us," Savannah called back.

"I was busy," Cameron--I had to assume this was Cameron--answered simply. She took off her sunglasses, handed them through the truck's back window to me. "Here, take these." I watched her turn around and eye the Little Veronica as it chased after us from a position about two hundred yards back. "Slow down," she instructed.

Savannah took her foot off the gas.

Cameron waited until the Little Veronica was about twenty feet behind us, then jumped off the truck onto it. I watched as she transformed into the liquid metal stuff--polyalloy--I had seen early, one giant column of shimmering metal which came slamming down on the Little Veronica.

"Can she stop it?" I asked.

Savannah smiled. "The T-925 is a polyalloy sheath over a hyperalloy endoskeleton. Which means Cameron has something to snap in two."

I watched as mimetic polyalloy clashed with mimetic polyalloy as the two--well, the two whatever-they-weres--engaged in their mechanical mortal combat. Every once in a while, I could see the electronic anguish of a hyperalloy skull as it emerged, screaming, from beneath the wall of polyalloy.

Even so, their battle lasted longer than you might think. A T-925, I would learn, is not a creature that goes down easily. That said, the outcome was never seriously in doubt. "A Little Veronica could take down a one-oh-oh-one," Patu said later. "Not very damn likely, but not impossible either. But Cameron? No way. The girl might be metal, but she's a survivor. That 925 never had a chance."

While the two Terminators fought, Savannah threw on the truck's emergency flashers and braked down to a halt. We walked down the empty traffic lane towards the two machines, watching them do battle.

At last Cameron--once again assuming the appearance of a young brunette woman in a sundress-stood towering over the prone Little Veronica, damaged pieces of her endoskeleton sticking out from beneath the polyalloy. I handed Cameron back her glasses, and she put them on.

"Is it really dead?" I asked, taking a step forward to get a better view.

"Stay back!" Savannah barked, but too late, as the Little Veronica feebly raised its arm--and a polyalloy shaft speared me though the gut.

A sunglasses-wearing wall of polyalloy instantly appeared, separating me off from the Little Veronica--but the damage was done.

"We need to get her to the hospital," was the last thing I heard before I lost consciousness.

* * *

I woke up in a groggy sort of unfeeling. I opened my eyes and was bombarded with white. I closed them and then opened them again a moment later. I was in a hospital bed, a nurse checking my I.V. drip. "Blrgh?" I asked.

The nurse ignored me, picked up the phone instead, dialed an outside line. "She's awake," he said--in Cameron's voice.

"S'vannah?" I asked, slowly re-mastering the use of my vocal cords.

"She'll be here soon, he--she--it--promised me. "For now, just rest. I should go get the doctor."

* * *

The good news was that I wasn't going to die. The bad news was, I was permanently paralyzed from the waist down.

Savannah, John, Patu, even Cameron--they all visited me regularly in the hospital. They all refused to talk about what happened that day, except to brief me on the official cover story. I was able to glean that as far as anyone knew, no one had identified Savannah or me as connected to the events on the highway. Apparently one or two witnesses had mentioned seeing Catholic schoolgirls, but a uniform goes a long way in conferring anonymity: they see the plaid skirt and kneesocks and not you. No one had even mentioned Savannah's red hair, her most striking characteristic.

This was good; it meant she wouldn't have to change schools.

The very first time she visited me, Savannah stayed behind after the others left. For a long time, she didn't even say anything.

"I'm sorry," she said at last. "This is all my fault. If I hadn't entered your life, this would never have happened."

I blinked, unsure how to respond. Would I give up having ever met Savannah if it meant I would be able to walk again?

"If there's anything I can do, anything at all," she continued, "just say it."

"Kiss me," I answered immediately, amazed at my own gall.

She didn't even hesitate. Not some light, "between friends" kiss, either; she kissed me so I'd stay kissed, full open mouth with tongue, lasting a good half-minute at least. When it was done, she reached out and stroked my temple.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, then turned and walked out of the room.

* * *

It was two months before they discharged from the hospital, mostly filled with physical therapy in which they taught me how to live the rest of my life without my legs. Eventually they decided I was able to complete the rest of my PT as an outpatient, and my mother wheeled me out of the hospital in the wheelchair I would spend the rest of my life in.

That night, I went to Savannah's house, ostensibly to celebrate my getting out of the hospital, but in truth to learn the truth about what had happened that day. (Well, to celebrate as well. . . .) They were all there: Savannah, John, Cameron (in her young woman persona), and Patu. There were also two people I did not know: a tall black man, Mr. Ellison, and a shorter white man, Agent Auldridge of the FBI.

"Agent Auldridge helped us to keep your encounter on the highway appropriately quiet," Mr. Ellison informed me in even tones. Apparently Mr. Ellison, who was a vice-president at Zeira Corporation, was Savannah's _real_ legal guardian; Savannah Quinn was in truth Savannah Weaver, citizen of Scotland, daughter of Catherine and Lachan Weaver, ZeiraCorp's founders.

John Quinn, on the other hand, was really John Connor, the son of the famously dangerous wanted fugitive, the late Sarah Connor. John was still technically wanted himself, but after the death of Sarah Connor had been confirmed, Agent Auldridge had succeeded in putting most of the case to rest. Suddenly, Savannah's delight in being called "Connor's bitch" made a whole lot more sense.  
   
So far, nothing they told us defied credibility; it hadn't occurred to me to notice that the birthdate of John Connor and the actual age of John Quinn couldn't be reconciled; he could be lying about being twenty-six, but there was absolutely no way he could have been thirty-four. Just, no--not and look like that. But I didn't think of it, so it didn't bother me.

The impossible to believe part: robots from the future. Well, not so much the robots part. Robots were within my field of comprehension. Sure these robots were far more sophisticated than anything our science was capable of (or so I thought), but it was easy enough to believe the technology wasn't far off. And besides, I had seen Cameron and the Little Veronica in combat; I was forced to acknowledge that yes, the attractive brunette in front of me was, in fact, a shapeshifting robot.

"Cybernetic organism," she corrected me. I asked her pardon; she didn't seem to grasp my sarcasm and graciously offered it, no hard feelings.\

No, the thing I couldn't believe was that these were robots _from the future_. Not just robots either. Apparently that ball-of-lightning hadn't been a _Star Trek_ transporter effect, but that of a time machine; Patu claimed to have travelled back from the year 2031. And apparently our assailant had been from the future too, as well as the Little Veronica.

Cameron was from a _different_ future, and John, in addition to having jumped from 1999 to 2007, had also visited 2027 but only briefly--he had come back.

In the future, John and Savannah led the Resistance against an army of machines like Cameron or the Little Veronica, all of whom were led by a sentient supercomputer known as SkyNet. Sarah Connor had known that John and/or Savannah would lead the Resistance, and had trained them to be prepared once Judgment Day--a catastrophic attack against the human race by SkyNet--happened, if it could not be prevented.

This is the part I found hard to accept. On the one hand, it explained how a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl in a plaid skirt turned out to be Little Miss Super Soldier, why our assailant had called her "Connor's bitch" and seemed so intimidated by her, and why Patu had immediately deferred to Savannah upon his arrival. It explained how John and Savannah had a shapeshifting robot--excuse me, cybernetic organism--on their speed dial. But . . . time travel. It was too much.

Was it really harder to accept than shapeshifting cyborgs? Except . . . I had seen shapeshifting cyborgs. One was sitting in front of me. Her, I was forced to accept. But as for time travel, I had to rely on the testimony of others . . . including my best friend.

You know the part in _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ where the Professor points out that Lucy is either lying, insane, or telling the truth about Narnia? He seems to be forgetting an option--that she could be honestly mistaken--and Lewis' extrapolation of the logic to argue for the divinity of Christ seems iffy at best (the evangelists are not my kid sister) but that's exactly the sort of situation I found myself in then. Either Savannah was lying, or insane, or mistaken--or time travel was real.

So I did the only thing I could do. I trusted in my friend. I took the leap of faith. Which left only one question--a question asked by so many people thrust into situations beyond their ken--a group, I would learn, which includes John and Savannah themselves.

"Why me?"

Patu answered. "SkyNet was trying to isolate John and Savannah by taking out their lieutenants before they were able to become a threat."

I looked at Patu incredulously. Me, a threat to SkyNet? One of John and Savannah's lieutenants in their post-apocalyptic paramilitary force? "Did I have my legs?" I asked.

He nodded, then looked to the floor.

I shrugged, fatalistically. "There goes that future, then."

Savannah met my gaze with an unflinching stare. "Don't be silly," she said.

**   
_A.D. 2029  
Twelve Years After Judgment Day  
Timeline Delta Bravo Three, Code "Girls in Their Summer Clothes"_   
**

"Savannah Connor," Patu announced.

I touched the controls of my chair--scavenged together from various pieces of terminated T-300s--to rotate it so I was facing the door. "Savannah," I greeted her warmly. Savannah at 29 is just as beautiful as she was at sixteen, just different: a wiser, more mature beauty. "What brings you to my subterranean laboratory?" I made a show of pronouncing "laboratory" in the British way, very Dr. Strangelove. Or at least Dexter's Lab.

Savannah smiled, but it was a sad smiled. "I can't visit an old friend?" she asked, leaning over for a kiss--quick, but not at all chaste, the kiss of a _very_ intimate friend.

I glanced at Patu, but he was, as usual, untroubled. It's not that he doesn't get jealous; that one time Kyle Reese hit on me is proof of that. It's just that he's incapable of any jealousy _towards John and Savannah Connor_. You have to understand, he's seen Judgment Day twice. (In a submarine off the coast of Iceland, there's a Patu who's only seen it once. We make sure the two never meet, not out of fear of some _Doctor Who_ paradox, but because Patu doesn't think he would get along with himself.) Each time, he's watched John and Savannah pull together the human race just when hope seemed lost and lead them through a post-apocalyptic world. His own feelings for the Connors are more hero worship than sexual, but to him, it is absolutely right and natural that I should still be in love with Savannah Connor.

"You've heard about the metal caravan to the north?" I asked.

Savannah nodded. "Is it something we need to be worried about?"

I shook my head. "I don't think so, not unless we want to. It doesn't look like they're headed here." I directed my chair to the console, began working controls.

"These are the aerial video feeds Dragonfly One took." Dragonfly One is one of the reprogrammed HK-VTOLs we use as unmanned spy planes.

Savannah watched the video. "Prisoner transfer, then."

"Do we know how many of those humans are actually Infiltrator HKs?"

I shook my head. "I see about a half-dozen models I recognize in there--there's at least four different 101s--but there's no way create an upper limit. Theoretically, every single person there could be a Terminator. Although I thought you'd be interested in this." I keyed up a different section of footage, one that showed the Infiltrator-class Terminator at the front of the caravan: blonde, female, four feet tall, about twelve years old. A Little Veronica.

"And a little child shall lead them," quoted Savannah.


End file.
